


Bad Things Happen Bingo: Infected Wound

by taylor_tut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Sister Vanya Hargreeves, Sick Character, Sickfic, Sister-Sister Relationship, Whump, allison hargreeves whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 11:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18603604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Allison has a few more scars than the obvious one after Vanya almost kills her, but even if she can't speak, she and Vanya need to talk. They have a heart to heart.





	Bad Things Happen Bingo: Infected Wound

Allison could feel the warmth of the cut on her back radiating inside her shirt, the heat and pain thumping along with her heartbeat as she sat in the parlor waiting for the taxi to come get her and take her to the airport. The most pressing of her wounds had been attended to—the gash across her neck—but because it had been so dramatic, it had meant that some smaller, less deadly injuries had gone unnoticed and therefore untreated. It struck her as odd, since Pogo was normally so thorough, but she supposed that he was dealing with a lot right now. She had no room to criticize him for being unfocused, in any case, nor did any of their siblings, save for maybe Five. 

She blinked a few times to clear her thoughts without shaking her head, which still hurt quite a lot. Her thoughts were wandering again, which she attributed to the headache that pounded behind her eyes and the chills that had her tugging her coat tighter around her body. Just as she thought that she might take a short nap here on the couch as she waited for her cab, she perked up at the sound of light footsteps coming down the stairs. She waited and listened as the person went into the study, rustled around for a bit, then came into the study. Allison sat up to see who it was and what they were looking for and startled Vanya in the process. 

“Oh, hey,” Vanya greeted shyly, earning a meek little wave from Allison. Neither of them quite knew what the other was thinking about everything that had happened and they hadn’t really had time to sit down and talk about it—not that Allison really could, anyway. Typical for the Hargreeves siblings, Allison thought, to have a problem that could so easily be addressed by a conversation but to never actually resolve it. Vanya was looking at the books on the shelves, taking some of the larger ones down and leaving through the pages, sometimes shaking them like she was trying to find something hidden inside one of them. At Allison’s curious head-tilt, Vanya gave an awkward smile. 

“Looking for some sheet music that dad used to have,” she explained. “I know no one else could have used it, so I’m assuming it’s still around here somewhere.”

Despite her fatigue, Allison desperately wanted to connect with her sister, so she reached clumsily to the side table for her pad of paper and marker. 

_ “Klaus?” _ she scribbled down, then tapped at the paper to get Vanya’s attention. She shook her head. 

“Nah, it’s not worth any money and I’m pretty sure he can’t smoke it,” Vanya said. She looked a little startled at her own reflexive joke, unsure whether or not that was an okay thing to do yet, and looked relieved when Allison smiled in response. The eggshells were getting uncomfortable on her feet, but she knew that they’d likely be walking on them for quite some time around one another. 

“So, I hear you’re going back home?” Vanya asked. Allison nodded. “Excited to see Claire?” Another nod, this one more emphatic. It felt like a conversation that she’d have with an old neighbor she’d run into at the grocery store, but Allison was grateful for the contact, anyway. She patted the couch seat next to her as she watched Vanya try to balance several books and binders on her leg to sort through them, and Vanya set the stack down on the floor with a loud thump before sitting on the couch heavily. 

“Thanks,” she said, and Allison shook her head, took her hands to reassure her that it wasn’t putting her out just to let Vanya exist around her. That’s probably how she’d felt for some time, and it sucked that she was only able to see it for the first time now that she couldn’t speak. Perhaps that wasn’t a coincidence. 

For someone whose powers relied upon sound, Vanya didn’t make a lot of it. She chose her words carefully, played every note on her violin exactly how it was written, stifled every cough or sneeze into her elbow; it was so impossible to know that she was even present in a room if you weren’t looking that the Hargreeves siblings scarcely noticed if she wasn’t. 

“You okay?” Vanya asked, and Allison looked at her confusedly. “You just seem… a little out of it, is all” She pointed to the pen and paper. “And your handwriting is kind of sloppy.” Allison nodded, the shrugged. She didn’t want to get into it, because if she did, it would mean a trip to the infirmary and that meant missing her flight and having to wait another few days to see her daughter. It seemed dramatic, but even after everything they’d survived in the past week, the thought of having to go another moment without Claire really felt like it might be what killed her. 

She uncapped the marker to write some excuse and dropped it, reaching down to the floor without thinking and regretting it immediately as pain tore through her back, eliciting a voiceless cry that made her drop the papers, too. Vanya was at her side in a second, the awkwardness momentarily forgotten, and helping her to sit up once more to lean against the couch. 

“There you go,” she murmured; “you’re okay.” Allison nodded, but she could feel how much she was shaking and knew that her face had definitely paled a few shades with the pain and nausea that followed. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” she asked, gently handing the paper and pen back to Allison, who pushed it away politely. As much as she didn’t want to delay her trip, the only way she was going to salvage her relationship with Vanya was going to be with complete transparency. She gestured to her back and turned stiffly so that Vanya could take a look. Her hands hesitated for a moment, but she finally mustered up the courage to roll up her sister’s shirt gently and winced at the cuts, red and angry. 

“I did these?” she asked in a trembling voice, and Allison squeezed her hand. It didn’t inculpate her but it didn’t exonerate her, either. “Right,” she forced herself to focus. “Uh, these look pretty nasty, Allison. I think we should maybe get you to the infirmary. I can get Luther.”

Allison allowed herself to be guided by the hand, Vanya supporting her when being upright made her dizzy, to the infirmary that she’d only just managed to get out of a few days prior. She hated that this would set her back, but on top of it being necessary, it was almost worth the pain and delay to have made up with Vanya before she left again. Perhaps her voice wasn’t going to be necessary in fixing all the relationships she’d broken, after all. Maybe it would give her a chance to, for once in her life, listen. 


End file.
